Sparse Partially Linear Additive Models

The generalized partially linear additive model (GPLAM) is a flexible and interpretable approach to building predictive models. It combines features in an additive manner, allowing them to have either a linear or nonlinear effect on the response. However, the assignment of features to the linear and nonlinear groups is typically assumed known. Thus, to make a GPLAM a viable approach in situations in which little is known $apriori$ about the features, one must overcome two primary model selection challenges: deciding which features to include in the model and determining which features to treat nonlinearly. We introduce sparse partially linear additive models (SPLAMs), which combine model fitting and $both$ of these model selection challenges into a single convex optimization problem. SPLAM provides a bridge between the Lasso and sparse additive models. Through a statistical oracle inequality and thorough simulation, we demonstrate that SPLAM can outperform other methods across a broad spectrum of statistical regimes, including the high-dimensional ($p\gg N$) setting. We develop efficient algorithms that are applied to real data sets with half a million samples and over 45,000 features with excellent predictive performance.